Magazine Best Of 2005 The closed doors
The closed doors
His real name is Vostanik Manuk Adoyan. But the whole world knows him as Arshile Gorky – the Great American artist, who was recognized in the United States as “the most international artist” and founder of the school of abstract expressionism.
Back in 1920, after stepping onto American soil for the first time, Vostanik declared: "Only to return to Van one day."
"He disliked America very much, the vanity of everything," recalls the artist's sister Agapi. "It's true, afterwards we got used to the crazy rhythm of this life, but all the same Gorky really missed his calm life in Van. We were living in Agapi's apartment. Then father came and took us to Providence, where Gorky studied at the Technical High School. It was his father's wish, but Gorky just wanted to paint. That was why he bought himself some paints and went to work in the Majestic Theater in Boston. During the intervals at the performances he would draw portraits, his mind was always in painting. In 1925 he left for New York – the city was considered to be the center of art in America."
It was in the US that Vostanik Adoyan got the idea to change his Armenian surname. Thus, his artistic pseudonym Arshile Gorky was born. By adopting the Russian word "Gorky" (bitter), he wanted to express all the suffering that he had experienced in his young life. In addition, he was devoted to the work of the great Russian writer Maxim Gorky. Sometimes, as ajoke, he would introduce himself to new acquaintances as a cousin of Maxim Gorky.
In New York, Arshile Gorky graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts, then continued his studies at Brown University, this time in architecture. At age 20, Gorky gained an appointment as a teacher at New York's Grand Central School of Art. With his profound knowledge of ancient and modern art history, this young Armenian delighted many American students while also having t plenty of time to devote to his paintings.
In 1926, Gorky began work on his painting "The Artist and His Mother". The iconic refined face of the mother has large eyes filled with sorrow. "Armenian eyes," wrote the artist, "possess a unique ability. They begin to talk earlier than the lips begin to move and continue to talk long after the lips have become motionless... Many think that the eyes of the mother I painted are in the style of Picasso, but they are mistaken."
Her little boy holds flowers in his hand. His slightly crooked lips appear ready to smile, but something is holding him back. Perhaps this is a deep hurt, the sources of which one should look for in his early childhood.
Vostanik Manuk was born in 1904 in a small village on the shore of Lake Van in Western Armenia. The boy was only 3 when his father left the family and moved to the United States to avoid military service in the Turkish army. The shock of the separation was so strong that the child lost his ability to speak and for a while underwent treatment in the local clinic. At first, Vostanik went to the village school, but then the family moved to Van. He was only II when, fleeing the Genocide of 1915, his family was forced to abandon their native land. In Yerevan, where they sought refuge, his mother died of hunger and hardship. After her death, Vostanik, still only 14, left for Tbilisi together with his younger sister Vartush and eventually caught a cargo ship to Istanbul. Five years later, he found himself in the US, which gave him both shelter and a new name.
In the early paintings of Arshile Gorky, one can see the strong influence of artists like Cezanne, Picasso, Miro, De Chirico... By end of 1930S, however, he is beginning to paint in a totally different way. These are sort of portraits of his soul, which brought him global fame after his death. "He understood everything that related to nature and painting. He had amazing vision, a supernatural sense of perception and incredible artistic flair. He had it all long before the meeting with the surrealists that told him that he already had it all," recalled the famous American artist Willem De Koninck.
By the early 1940s, Arshile Gorky found himself bracketed among such leading figures of European culture as Roberto Matta, Andre Masson and Andre Breton. During the awful years of Nazi occupation they had all moved from Europe to America. Maybe it was from them that Gorky's creative work received its biggest and most necessary support.
